


Book Rec

by WritLarge



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Young Jason, bonding over jane austen, jason todd loves books, proto-librarian barbara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 14:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17185091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritLarge/pseuds/WritLarge
Summary: The library is young Jason's favourite sanctuary.





	Book Rec

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aya_kunZeroaddicted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aya_kunZeroaddicted/gifts).



> Baby Jason anything and smart Jason were requested, so I hope this works for you!

Jason loved the library.

It was warm, quiet, and filled with books. The librarians didn’t even bat an eye at him being there during the day. They all thought he was home-schooled. It was nice. 

School might have been the same if his dad hadn’t pissed off so many of the teachers, the drunk bastard. Not that kids from his part of town were looked on favourably to begin with. Everyone except his mom figured that Jay would be following in the footsteps of his father and end up working for one gang or another. Jason didn’t want to be anything like him though. He’d stay home for his mom if he could, but that would just rile up his dad even more and make things worse.

This morning he hung around one of the real home-school groups and listened in on their lessons. It was pretty cool. Not for the first time he wished he really was one of them, or that he felt like school actually wanted him there. Wishing was stupid though. It never changed anything.

Jason retreated to his spot, an indent on the far wall made between two bookshelves that didn’t quite line up, and curled up to read. He was working his way through Charles Dickens’ books. He’d found Oliver Twist pretty depressing (poor Nancy) but he was enjoying Little Dorrit. 

“Dickens? That’s a pretty ambitious independent study.”

Jason startled and looked up. A red-haired girl stared at him, volunteer badge swinging from her neck. Shit. School must be out.

“I gotta go,” he shot to his feet, grabbing his bag and darting around the cart she was pushing.

“You forgot your book!”

Jay didn’t expect to see her again after that, but a few weeks later the high school must have been out for the day because there she was, peering down at him in his place.

“What do you want?”

“I’m just curious. What's your name?” Jason eyed her badge. She seemed all right.

“David.” He’d swiped a library card from one of the home-school kids. It gave him something to flash when people asked even if he didn't usually take books home.

“Hi, I’m Babs. No Dickens today?”

“Finished it.” He held up the book he’d just grabbed from the shelf and Babs wrinkled her nose. “What?”

“I think you can pass on Lolita for now,” she plucked it out of his hand. “You like the classics though, huh?”

Jason shrugged.

“Can I make a recommendation?” 

“I don’t want anything dumb.” He tried a few of the books in the middle school and teen displays and been pretty bored. The Hobbit had been good though.

“What have you read so far?”

“Charles Dickens. Robert Louis Stevenson. Alexandre Dumas. Thomas Hardy-”

“No women?”

“Umm,” he tried to remember. Jason hadn’t consciously avoided girls or anything, but now that he thought about it...

“Try this one then,” Babs handed him a hardcover. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. 

“Okay, thanks.” 

“Barbara?” That was the head librarian. Shit. Jay didn’t want her attention. He stuffed the book in his bag and scrambled to his feet.

“Wait, don’t run off again.”

“I have to get home.”

“Okay, all right. Maybe next time you can tell me what you thought?”

Oh, of the book. “Sure.”

But there wasn’t a next time. A few days later Jason’s dad was in jail (good riddance) and his mom was falling apart. All his time was devoted to her now. Finding ways to get money, making sure she ate, managing when she was sick. The book Babs had given him was brilliant. He’d practically memorized it. Somewhere, David Walker was being probably being charged for the book he’d never seen but no way was Jason returning it. It lived under his pillow now.

It took him almost a decade before the memory of the kind red-head at the library, whose name he couldn’t recall, connected to the tentatively accepting Barbara Gordon. It was another year before he worked up the nerve to approach her after a family meeting. They’d never really had much in common. Maybe this would help?

“Got a minute to talk?”

“About what?” she asked, scanning his face for clues until she saw the book he held and her eyes widened. Eidetic memory for the win.

“I did promise to tell you what I thought, didn’t I?”

And for the first time, Barbara Gordon beamed up at him. 

 

 _“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”_ Jane Austen


End file.
